


Maybe the Real Treasure Is the Davids We Taunted Along the Way

by taylor_tut



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Child Neglect, Common Cold, Gen, Sick Character, Sickfic, because max is afraid of being neglec, chronically ill david, dadvid, david cares, david has weak lungs, david is camp dad, david will protec, just... not as obviously, lung problems, max cares too, max will rejec, neglected max, sick david, sick max
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 21:35:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14145048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: Max gets a head cold and doesn't know it matters. David cares, even if it's at the cost of his own health.





	1. Chapter 1

“Good morrning, Camp Campbell campers!” David chirped, looking over a sea of displeased faces. “I hope you’re ready for a day of fun!” He paused for Max’s sarcastic comment, but it didn’t happen. Max looked tired, he realized–maybe he’d be a little easier to deal with today.

David handed out maps to the children in groups.

“What’s this?” Neil asked, studying the paper intently. “Where does it go?”

Nerris gasped loudly. “It’s–it’s a quest!” She squealed, stuffing the map into her satchel and beelined for David’s leg, hugging it. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!”

David chuckled and continued, not bothering to pry her off. 

“This is a treasure hunt,” he explained. “The first group to find all the items on the list wins. The twist is that you won’t have any technology to guide you! You’ll be relying solely on the navigational skills we learned on Monday!” 

Neil tapped on his compass, frowning. “Either this thing is broken, or there’s some kind of intense magnetic force in the kitchen.”

The quartermaster shrugged. “Sorry.”

David looked uncomfortable but didn’t dwell on it–it was usually better not to. 

“Each group will be paired with an adult,” Gwen said. “Nerris, Nurf, Ered, and Space Kid, you’re with me. Harrison, Dolph, and Preston, you’re with Quartermaster.” 

The kids smiled uncomfortably and took a step away from his hook hand. 

“Which leaves Nikki. Neil, and Max with me!” David smiled. “Everyone happy with their groups?” 

He pretended that the answer was a lot more positive than it was. “Great! Remember, there’s a prize at stake here, so do your best!”

The counselors ushered the children out of the mess hall, Max trailing behind the rest of the group. David frowned. While Max never enjoyed camp activities, complaining about them was, as far as he was concerned, his camp, and his docility was worrisome. He hung back for a moment to walk beside him.

“Everything alright, kiddo?” he asked, earning a glare from Max.

“Don’t call me that,” he grumbled. His voice sounded congested and slightly stuffy, and it didn’t escape David’s notice that he hadn’t answered the question. 

“Okay,” he agreed, stopping and hoping Max would do the same, “I won’t. But–hey, look at me,” he instructed, catching Max by the hood and turning him around, “is something wrong?”

Max rolled his eyes. “I just don’t care about this stupid shit,” he said tiredly. “I want to go back to sleep.” 

David’s eyebrows furrowed. “Are you sure that’s all it is?” 

Max sighed. “Just drop it, okay? I’m not in the mood to be David-ed right now.” He continued walking ahead, and David didn’t stop him this time. 

* * *

 

Nikki was positively shaking with excitement. David thought for sure she was vibrating so fast she was just going to turn into a gas.

“The first place on the map is by the lake!” she shouted, “and I know where that is! Let’s GO!” 

Max rubbed his temples and winced away from her. “Can you chill?” he asked, and she looked him over briefly, then nodded. 

Nikki lead the way, Neil correcting her with the compass every few minutes, while David and Max just struggled to keep up. 

Max was sweating, but hadn’t removed his hoodie. They hadn’t been walking for long, but David handed him a water bottle from his backpack. 

Max took it but looked confused. 

“Drink it,” David said. “You look a little peaky. If you need a rest, we can take one.” 

Max shook his head, but a few rough coughs into his elbow followed by swiping the sleeve of his hoodie under his red nose was the final straw. 

“Nikki, Neil,” David called, “you two go on ahead. I need to tie my shoe.”

Nikki halted. “What about Max?”

David beamed. “Buddy system,” he said. “Max is my buddy!” 

That seemed to be enough of an explanation for them, so they continued ahead while David crouched down in front of Max. 

“Max, come on. Be honest with me here,” he leveled, “are you feeling okay?” Max shrugged. 

He reached a hand out to feel his forehead and cheeks. Not quite feverish, but clammy and slightly heated. 

“You’re a little warm,” he announced.

Max rolled his eyes. “It’s just a stupid cold,” he admitted. 

David  _gasped_  as if he’d just been mortally betrayed. “Max!” he fretted, “why didn’t you say anything? I wouldn’t have made you come on this trip if I’d known you weren’t feeling well.” 

Max, to David’s surprise, looked a little surprised. “You… wouldn’t have?” 

David blinked. “Of course not,” he replied. “Your health is more important than any camp activity.”

Max avoided David’s eyes. “Oh.”

David sighed, then put his hand on Max’s shoulder. “Well, you shouldn’t be walking around like this. I’ll get Gwen on the phone and get her or the QM to take Neil and Nikki so I can take you back to camp.” 

Max kicked his feet. “But David… You’re not allowed to use technology.” 

David laughed. “I can do whatever I want,” he said. But when Max didn’t move to go back to camp, he paused. “Unless… you don’t want to go back to camp?”

Max shrugged again. 

“Well, you’re not going to be walking around the forest when you’re sick. Come on,” he instructed, turning his back for Max to climb on his shoulders. Max rested his chin on David’s head, giving in to the fatigue but still enjoying the ride, even if he’d never admit it. “Next time you’re not feeling 100%, you should let me or Gwen know, deal?”

He felt Max nod against him. “I just didn’t know it mattered. No one would have given a shit about something like that at home.”

David’s heart broke. “Well, here, we do care.”

Max smiled and was grateful that David couldn’t see it.


	2. Chapter 2

Four days later, Max started to feel better. David let him stay out of camp activities as long as the low grade fever persisted and the day after it broke, somehow managing to be both running the camp and constantly at his own beck and call for anything he needed, no matter how late at night or early in the morning. 

He’d abused it for three days, unapologetically. He’d called David at midnight for hot chocolate, and as soon as the sun had risen, he’d called him again to cover his windows with blanket curtains so he could keep sleeping. David hadn’t once complained, regardless of how preposterous or annoying the request was. 

Max would likely have been content to continue working David to the bone, but a conversation between David and Gwen, one he wasn’t supposed to hear, guilted him into going a bit easier on him.

“David, what the hell is all that?” Gwen had called, intersecting David on his way into Max’s cabin. 

“Max asked for more pillows and blankets,” David explained, but there was something… off about his voice. Something shaky, maybe even a little congested, but definitely exhausted. “And he’s bored. He won’t say it, because he’s trying to convince me that being sick in bed is better than camp, but I know he is.” Max took offense to that, but kept listening in.

Gwen sighed. “You’re running yourself into the ground,” she pointed out. “You can’t be everywhere at once. It’s just a little head cold; he’ll sleep it off.”

“I know,” David said, “but I want to make sure all the campers are having fun, no matter what! That’s our job.” 

“Your job, maybe,” she muttered. “As far as I’m concerned, if we return them all alive with roughly the same number of appendages they started with, I say it’s a success.”

David didn’t question the “roughly,” nor argue his point, which was unusual. Instead, Max heard his footsteps draw closer to the door before Gwen called after him once more. 

“Just promise me,” she instructed, “you won’t push yourself too far. You already look like you’re coming down with Max’s cold, and I don’t want to be stuck with the campers alone while you’re out sick.”

David laughed good-naturedly, which turned into a dry cough. “I promise,” he lied. 

 

Maybe Max had taken advantage a little—okay, as much as he possibly could. However, he really didn’t feel bad about it until the next morning: the day he was finally over his cold, at least enough to get back to camp activities. 

“Max is back!” Nikki cried, engulfing him in a tight hug. 

“Easy, Nikki,” Neil chastised, peeling her off his side. “How’re you feeling?” 

Max rolled his eyes. “I’m fine; I’ve been fine; it was just a stupid cold. But I’ll take any excuse to get out of participating in this bullshit,” he explained, gesturing around the mess hall. 

“That’s fair,” Neil agreed. “I know I would have gone crazy cooped up in a tent like that all week. Glad to have you back, buddy.”

Max didn’t want to admit that he’d felt a little left out, so he just wolfed down his breakfast as fast as he could, instead. His appetite was back and angry at him for the soft, gentle-food diet that David had insisted on feeding him to avoid upsetting his stomach. And really, he hadn’t outright missed camp. However, stealing David’s phone to go through his Tinder only held his attention for so long, and the rest of the time he’d just spent sleeping or reading. 

“I’m kinda surprised you didn’t kill David for hovering. He was leaving to go check on you like every half hour,” Neil noted.

“Yeah, what was it like having David play nurse?” Ered asked, scooting closer.

“It was annoying,” Max said. “But I’ll admit it was fun to make him do all the stupidest shit I could think of just cause he couldn’t say no.”

“Aw, that’s not nice,” Space Kid interjected. “He was really worried about you.”

Max felt a twinge of something that definitely wasn’t guilt. 

“Where is that idiot, anyway?” he asked, realizing for the first time that it was well after breakfast had ended and David was nowhere to be seen. 

Almost as if on cue, the doors to the mess hall squeaked open to reveal David, looking both exhausted and rushed. 

“Ah, fuck,” Max muttered. David’s hair was unbrushed and one shoe was untied, but more worrisome than that was the pallor of his face and a deep flush resting high on his cheeks. 

“Language, Max,” David scolded in a voice that sounded like he’d been screaming at a rock concert despite the fact that it was only 9 a.m. “Is everything alright?” he asked so concernedly that Max cringed. 

“Seriously?” Max asked, huffing irritably. “I got you sick.” David looked nervous, almost panicked, and deeply offended by the accusation. 

“No,” he denied, “of course you didn’t. I’m fine! Now, who’s ready to learn to identify plants in the forest?” Max frowned. At no point in the week had he felt as bad as David looked now, but that was probably because he’d rested, while David had instead worked double time to make sure that Max was comfortable and the camp was functional. 

Before Max could continue arguing with him, David had already turned back to the rest of the campers and begun handing out small booklets. 

“We’re going to be working in small groups again,” David announced, “but I’d like for everyone to switch up their partners! Work with someone you haven’t worked with before. That way, we can all make new friends—”

“—Fuck that,” was the general consensus to that idea, and David watched helplessly as the campers migrated back to the same small friend cliques that they’d each formed since day one. 

“Well, alright,” David conceded, “I guess there’s no harm in loyalty?” Gwen shrugged indifferently and gathered up her group of campers, followed by the QM, leaving only David, Max, Neil, and Nikki in the mess hall.

David turned to cough into his elbow a few times, deep and painful-sounding, before turning to his campers with a plastered-on smile that didn’t cover up the slight wetness that the cough had brought to his eyes. 

“Ready to go?” he rasped. They didn’t have much of a choice but to follow. 

 

The group had barely gotten into the forest before the humidity and heat of the day began to take its toll on everyone, particularly David. As Max wiped the first bead of sweat from his forehead, he glanced to David, who was, for once, lagging behind the group, and found that he was already bright red in the face and not even sweating. He’d been shivering in the mess hall, but at least he seemed comfortable out here. 

“Is it just me, or does David look like shit?” Neil asked, staring anxiously behind them. 

Max rolled his eyes. “I already asked him,” he said, “but he’s an idiot and says he’s fine.”

Nikki’s face was serious for once, a slightly nervous frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Maybe we should tell Gwen,” she said. “What if he’s really sick and can’t make it back to camp?”

“Then we leave him here to get eaten by wolves,” Max shrugged, feigning indifference. “He’s a big kid, he can do whatever he wants.” Despite saying that, Max slowed down to wait for David to catch up, staggering toward them dizzily. The closer he got, the louder they could hear his breath wheezing in his chest. It sounded like he was breathing through a pen cap that was lodged in his throat. 

“C-campers,” he huffed, bending over to put his hands on his knees and lean his back heavily against the utility shed that stood at the very edge of the woods, “you go on ahead.” He gave no further instructions, but Neil and Nikki nodded, gesturing for Max to follow, but, of course, he didn’t. Instead, he lingered as David ducked away and unlocked the shed door.

 

Max didn’t know what he was expecting. Whether it was for Mr. Campbell to jump out of the shed with a suitcase full of artifacts he’d stolen from a tomb or for Gwen to be holding a bunch of hot cryptids hostage, he couldn’t hazard a guess. Possibilities ran through his mind and he hoped against hope he didn’t find the quartermaster as he opened the door. 

What he didn’t expect was to see David standing with his back to the wall as he heard the hiss of pressurized air leaving a vessel. 

“Are you doing whippits or some shit?” Max asked, and David startled so hard he dropped the cartridge, stifling wheezing coughs into his elbow. 

“I,” he took a breath, “I don’t know what that means?” 

Max rolled his eyes. “Then what the fuck are you huffing alone in here? Spray paint? Whipped cream cartridges?” 

David looked so genuinely lost that Max almost felt a little guilty for barging in on him. He pulled his ascot up in front of his mouth and coughed a few more times, seemingly unable to get his breath, before he knelt down to the ground to search for whatever it was he’d dropped. 

“It’s nothing, Max,” he said suspiciously, “just get back to—what’s today’s… painting? We’re painting?” 

He should know that. David was so on top of everything in the camp all the time that he should definitely know that. Why didn’t he know that? That and the desperate gasping he was doing gave Max a sick, nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

“I think I should go get Gwen,” he admitted. “You need help.” 

David shook his head vigorously, which made him dizzy enough to have to sit on the floor. 

“Don’t—Max,” he breathed, “Inhaler.” His eyes fluttered shut as his chest heaved for air, making a strange, alarming rattling noise. Fuck.

“You were using an inhaler?” Max demanded, standing right below David and slapping one hot cheek when he didn’t answer. “Like, for asthma?”

David nodded, struggling to look Max in the eyes as he palpated his chest in a futile attempt to breathe better. 

“Okay,” Max tried to calm himself down, “I’ve gotta find it, then.” The shed was dimly lit, the windows long-darkened with dust and leaves, and filled to the brim with crap, everything from cleaning equipment to mysterious boxes. David was still struggling to catch his breath, breathing like he was trying to inhale through a coffee straw, as Max felt around on the floor and underneath shelves until his hand touched—

“I got it!” he exclaimed, shoving it directly into David’s mouth instead of his waiting, shaking hands. David would have laughed if he’d had the air, but instead, he pushed it away from his mouth and fished in his pocket for an unused cartridge, then brought it back to his mouth and pressed the button, feeling his airways begin to close at the contact of the steroid. 

He sat against the shed wall, breathing hard but  _ breathing _ , which was better than a minute ago. They sat in silence like that until David had enough air to speak again.

“Thank you, Max,” he managed to say in a breathless, rough voice.

Max blinked and David steeled himself for an unpredictable reaction. 

“‘Thank you?’” Max mocked, “I’m the one who almost killed you!”

David chuckled, then coughed. The asthma attack had receded, but the congestion hadn’t. 

“You didn’t almost kill me,” he reassured, “this happens. It’s just because I’m a little under the weather.”

Max frowned. “You’re sick because I made you do all that shit for me that I didn’t even need—”

“—I wanted you to be comfortable—”

“—so why didn’t you tell me you had asthma?”

David hesitated. “It wasn’t important.” He paled. “Neil and Nikki?”

“Getting Gwen,” Max replied offhand, “who might be getting an ambulance. And clearly it was important, because you came in here to have a fucking asthma attack alone. Do you know how fucking dangerous that is?”

At least he had the wherewithal to look ashamed. But rather than gloating, that puppy-eyed look made Max feel more guilty. 

“I got you sick,” he repeated. “I didn’t need half the shit I asked you for.”

David shook his head vehemently, coughing harshly again into his elbow. 

“Max, no,” he argued, “this isn’t your fault. I messed up by not taking the precautions I’m supposed to take.” He gave a small smile. “I just haven’t had issues with asthma in years, and I didn’t even think…”

“Whatever,” Max interjected. “Should you really be in here? Don’t you need fresh air or something?”

David smiled and let Max help him to his feet. “That sounds good,” he agreed, making it only as far as the direct outside of the door before sitting heavily again against the wall. The lack of air and general illness were both taking their toll, making him tired and leaving him with a pounding headache he didn’t realize he was trying to massage away until Max started fishing around in his backpack for something. He frowned as he pulled out a small, colorful squishy. 

“You brought a fucking stress ball but you didn’t bring any aspirin?” he accused. 

David nodded. “Being one with nature can really put a person in touch with their feelings,” he explained. “If you—any camper, I mean—wanted to, you know, talk… I wanted to be prepared.”

Max rolled his eyes. “Ignoring the fact that you have an entire therapist’s office in here,” he said, “the only thing that’s actually useful is this, so… drink it, I guess.” He shoved a water bottle into David’s hand and watched as instead of drinking it, David just pressed it against one eye, then the other. Where the fuck was Gwen?

“Do you think we should go looking for Nikki and Neil?” David asked. “They’ve been gone a while.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “Do you think you could get up if you tried?”

Well, that shut him up, but didn’t ease the worry in David’s face until both of them heard the sound of footsteps jogging toward them. Gwen stooped to one knee in front of David and pressed her hand to his forehead. 

“Oh, Jesus Christ, David,” she muttered, “what did I tell you? To fucking rest if you were sick. The kids said you had a heart attack? What happened?”

David felt guilty for having freaked them out so much. “Asthma attack,” he corrected, “and it’s fine now.”

“This,” she argued, pointing to his listless body, “is not fine. But we can argue about that later. Let’s just get you back to bed, okay?” 

David thought that was the best suggestion he’d heard all day, and eagerly allowed her to help him up and back to the camp, the campers following. 

**Author's Note:**

> chapter two will feature David! Don't worry ya lil butts. He'll suffer too.


End file.
